Re: [CH] Relabeled Hot Sauces

jim@wildpepper.com
Fri, 27 May 2005 14:53:48 -0500 

Well Dustin,

I hadn't meant to get such a thread started by my momentary weakness
:-/  I suffered a moment of 'being human' in expressing frustration that
all the press seems to go to those who can come up with the silliest
label at the moment, rather than the best sauce.  Tilting at windmills,
I was!  Forgive me.  I realize that that's the way of the market & I
apologize for seeming like I was griping.

To answer your questions.....

I too, am guilty of having at least a couple of different labels for
some of my sauces.  This is a very common trait in the industry and
allows us (suppliers) to better respond to customer needs.  Or so I tell
myself ;-)  I have a definite market for the Fire Dept labels, that is
entirely separate as opposed to the 'normal' labels.  Making a sauce can
be very expensive- most often it is cheaper to do a different label for
a different audience.  I try to be sure and let folks know up front
though that the sauces are the same (Semper Fry/Pure Arson/Red Savina(R)
Garlic and Ralphs' Righteous/General Hurtin').  All of us only try to
respond to what the public wants- they're demanding (through sales)
these goofy labels.  "Bona fide" chile heads are a very small niche in
the entire marketplace, even though that is where my loyalty lies. 
Bottom line is, if the public didn't want it, it wouldn't happen.

Kamuk is, as I know it, a manufacturer that is contracted by many folks
to produce hot sauce.  I've sent pallet loads of Indiana grown Red
Savina(R) Habanero down there to Costa Rica (Kamuk) to get turned into
sauce that in turn gets shipped back up here under various labels for
one of the people you listed.  My buddy Blair Lazar was raggin' over
that fact- that he appears to be the only 'big guy' that is still making
sauce Stateside.  They are a co-packer.  Think of them as a Sysco or
GFS- you put your label on a sauce that they already make and pass it
off as your own.  Again, I do the same but not on a fraction of the
scale that they do.

Your blood is boiling because as an enlightened chilehead, you live in
an ideal world.  Much as I and the rest of the manufacturers would also
like to live there, we need to make a living in this one ;-)

-Jim C
Mild to Wild(R)
Only sometime 'evil corporate type' :-)